The insidious rise of "tradwives": A right-wing fantasy is rotting young men's minds
salon.com
If the average American were asked what they imagine the priorities of the feminist movement are these days, most people would likely cite concerns like "fighting abortion bans" or "getting justice for sexual violence victims" or boring mainstays like "equal pay for equal work." But if you listen in to the world of right-wing social media influencers, they have a different answer. To them, feminists are single-mindedly obsessed with destroying women who identify as "tradwives."
Are they also selling the fantasy you can make ends meet on a single person's income?
Right, that's the most idiotic part. My wife has a career that I also make sacrifices for and vice versa. Even with modest career growth, she will contribute about $4M in earnings over 30 years.
Setting earnings aside, we have a child, and she is an equal partner. It would be insulting and foolish to ask her to stop working. We want our son to grow up knowing that women are just as capable as men.
It’s the same fantasy. You work on seven years I’ll work on odd ones
They're selling the fantasy to people still living with their parents.
In the UK childcare is so expensive that it has started to make sense for someone to take a career break while they are young. Unfortunately women appear to be most affected by this.
This is probably a luxury thought but I wonder if the opportunity cost of the career break not leading to promotions ends up costing a lot more than the childcare in the long run.
Child care is not expensive here, but women tend to "sacrifice" their economic future to spend more time with the kids. This means they work less than men, and they will suffer quite a lot when it comes to pensions when they get older.
All right wing fantasies are rotting young men’s minds.
Remember boys and men: If you can’t get a girlfriend, much less a woman of your dreams, just become radicalized by a fringe extremist group on the internet.
Worked great for the Taliban, hasn't it?
Exactly, if you can force all women to be subservient, they'll have to date you.
Depends on whether the 72 virgins thing is true. And if said virgins are girls.
Surprise! Your 72 virgins are other hopelessly radicalized young men from your cult!
The 72 virgins are the friends we made along the way to martyrdom.
All 72 remaining Republican voters.. imagine
Did it? Sure, their buddies are in charge, but they still have to live in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and it seems to be a shithole by virtually every definition.
In fairness, all x wing (pun intended) fantasies are rotting young minds. My extremism is mind rot, whether you're a guy, girl or whatever you want to be in between. Yes, be progressive, but please please also be pragmatic. There is a real world put there and the pushing of left wing agendas in the past decade has caused more hand than it's done good. People are tired of the more nonsensical parts being pushed and now we have a trump in the Netherlands. Great job.
Can we please focus on actual important rights? We fucking lost abortion in the US, thanks to trump who also had a lot of "fuck this PC police bullshit" votes, this coming from too many of my US friends and customers who voted for him back in the day even though he was bad for them, they just were done with the left wing crap...
Please be practical, focus on real and actual issues that need to be resolved.
Edit: I miss the times where people would read more than just the first 5 words...
Interested to hear what you think are not "actual important rights." Please elaborate.
Wilders winning the election in the Netherlands is not the fault of the Left. Who was in power in the Netherlands for the last twenty years? It was center right liberals.
PC? You mean words and actions having consequences and previously marginalized groups having a voice in society? Why do those things upset you so much?
Why do you think that building an egalitarian society where all voices are actualized is bad?
Can you be more explicit, please? Which policies, exactly, should be pushed? Which abandoned?
I read it as them believing that the modern focus on identity politics on the left might be counterproductive. Not sure though, they would need to clarify.
I'm definitely interested in hearing from them what they mean. If that were their answer, I'd want to know what exactly is meant by "identity politics", because it seems like a negative applause light rather than a pointer to a real thing in the territory. At least that's how I generally see it used.
Yeah I'm curious too. Wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get clarification though since this thread has turned into a bit of a bun fight.
You mean gender identity politics? Because the right has been weaponizing identity politics for a long time. To the point that people acknowledge that they are better served by left wing policies but will still vote right because that's part of their identity.
Why do you hate Star Wars tho
BOTH SIDES!!!!1
I've heard the term "tradwife" before, and it always seems to equal "Someone who will be a new mom, but does what she's told".
Based on direct personal experience I recommend a witch wife. Intelligent, capable, not submissive (unless she wants to be) and definitely not helpless.
Young disillusioned men who don't think they are getting the respect they deserve fantasize about a submissive wife and family that they can rule over as a Patriarch. They think that this is more natural or normal than marriage as a partnership of equals.
It's fucking gross
Yuck. My wife is an adult with her own feelings, goals, fears, and strengths. Most of which compliment my own. I can't imagine trying to keep her held down, because it's too much fun to stand back and watch her.
Woman In Total Control of Herself. There's a song and everything!
Great song too, I listen to it on my way to work when I want to get upbeat!
[off topic] There was a hilarious episode of Dharma and Greg where Greg's mother turns 50 and starts to freak out. Dharma tries to help by getting her to embrace her "inner crone."
Exactly who I want!
My friend couldn't understand why I was into his sister when "she's stubborn and thick headed!" No, she just knows what she wants and she knows when to argue. I like that she has a brain...
Imagine not knowing how to cook or do anything for yourself so you need a captive woman to do it all for you and not resent you at all.
My conservative friend is literally this person.
His mother was his "slave" and now he found an "asian slave." He doesn't cook or clean or anything really. He's even told me to look for foreign women because "white women" don't want to do things for you like others will.
She does all the work at home and he makes money. He's living the 1950s conservative dream...
Married my Filipina last Friday! She's the perfectly coifed and feminine "tradwife" this article is talking about, but Jesus that word makes me almost physically ill. These young men are looking for slaves, not partners. Had a gf like that once, bored me to death.
I have to note, there's something to be said about a traditional division of labor in the household. We both cook and clean, but it's 90% her doing. I do all the "manly" stuff she's clueless about. It works because no one is bitching about a thing not being done. Without any real discussion, we both know who's responsible for what and we take care of one another's needs. There are almost zero arguments, and when there are, they aren't angry.
LOL, it was kinda hard to adjust to! "Baby, I can feed myself, been doing it for decades. I can also run a washing machine." She's never had a man that didn't treat her like a maid. I've turned her around from being so submissive and now she is more open with me, less fear of offence.
tl;dr: I just married the finest women I've ever known, and she's what the article describes. But she's my partner, not my slave. If anyone's a slave, it's mutual. :)
Congratulations!!
I'm perpetually single so I don't actually have a dog in this fight, but I'd like to think I would be the same as you in that situation lol
Thanks! I was raised by Greatest Gen grandparents, Beaver Cleaver style in the 70's, so this is natural to me.
But I had always approached live-in relationships as a 50-50 thing. We both split the chores equally, ya know?
But that's really bullshit. Partners have their strengths and weaknesses, so why not play to that? Dad never asked mom to mow the lawn. Mom never asked dad to do the dishes. It was simply understood that each person had their role to play, and they did so. Zero fights, zero discussion.
Dad helped with the math homework (he was an engineer), mom with the English and writing (she wasn't creative, but she knew the rules). Nothing wrong with that.
I do not wish to give credence to these assholes that merely want a subservient wife, disgusting, revolting. The term "tradwife" makes me physically ill, puts a spin on my stomach, can't even begin to watch the videos in the article. But again, there's something to be said for a division of labor.
My wife honestly loves taking care of me. First date she kept saying, "I will take care of you." Guess that Filipina for, "I love you."?
What that means to her is cooking and cleaning and such. And I wish to take care of her. To me that means making most of the money, handling vehicle issues, fixing the weed whacker, whatever.
I have never loved or been loved like this. She took my hand in marriage last Friday and I'll hold that until the end.
(And in writing this, I realized she has a cold and is ill in bed. I will go to her now. Later y'all.)
I guess a 50/50 (ish) is a nice place to start exploring where the two participants in the union have their strengths. Congratz on the wedding, I hope your wife get's well soon!
I dislike your friend so much, just from your description of them, that I caught myself wanting to down vote your post.
Sorry friend lemming, thanks for the hard share.
Lol thanks for resisting! Just remember the downvote button was "invented" to filter out distractions from the discussion, it's not about what we like or don't like but whether it's relevant to the conversation! :)
Angry upvote
And I'll bet you dollars to donuts he will say he's not a racist because he's married to an Asian.
What does asian slave even mean? Like he literally went to SE Asia and got someone or was there an Asian girl he met that happened to enjoy being a housewife?
I've heard from several people who are in an older generation than I am about this, but it goes something like this: Date foreigners, and even better, if you can go to that country for a little while and find someone willing to be your wife there, marry them and bring them back.
It's always been off-putting when someone can say things like that in an earnest manner.
I mean, look how many chicks can't make any money and they all think they're 10/10s looking for dudes to pay for everything. There's a real weird dynamic going on with this generation. Both sexes aren't even successful at their own default stereotype but want their partners to be the perfect stereotype.
That last sentence is a good way to put it.
No one:
Conservatives: WEMEN BAD
I like that there’s even an accidental confession in the spelling.
Naïve man children who need validation because being with someone their equal is scary, and the "tradwife" insofar as they exist, wants to be completely dependent on this manchild. Sounds like a great idea I'm sure it works out well all the time. The idea of being with a woman like this hell to me, and any of the associated sexual fantasies involved are hotter when power is willingly relinquished, from either person, not in some weird coercive context.
This is their real fear. And that if women are given a chance to live their life in freedom, the men might actually have to offer something on the relationship table that they might not be able to manage.
I think the "men" here is them specifically because they don't have confidence in themselves, thus the need for an outside force to determine their status. If you know of the Steven Crowder article on how they got married the "right" way, that's a great glimpse in to this mindset, especially now that him and his wife are separated. He makes it a point to highlight how they're so much better than others, that he's proud to say that, and how he's writing the article while presumably on his honeymoon. Not even all these tradwife guys want to wait to marriage for sex either, like at least Crowder supposedly followed through with that part of it. I feel like the commodified tradwife brand is sort of just a secular fantasy of what religious traditional marriages would be but without the actually hard things that come with that.
Surely it's easier to demand a submissive partner who won't talk back rather than spend time on grooming, personal hygiene, and not being a fucking massively immature man-baby though?
It's funny cause I grew up where the traditional husband and wife arrangement was what you were expected to perform, and I still have some friends who've followed through with it into adulthood. I'm talking 3+ kids, wife might be part time involved with the church, and the husband is just working so much, plus he's involved in church activities and "leadership" stuff. I've basically seen the best cases of this working and worst cases too.
The thing that turned me against this initially, is it just sounded so fucking miserable as the husband, you're expected to demonstrate leadership in the community, provide for your family, budget your household and wife's spending, know how to be a handyman around the house, do all the yard work and heavy chores, provide your wife the "tools she needs" ie renovate and get the fancy stuff. You never see your friends and it becomes your whole life, plus you don't even see your kids as often as you might if you were trading time with a working spouse. Oh and you likely are part of a church men's group and bible study where you have hosting and leadership tasks, and you are as a group working through problems in marriages and providing support.
That's not the arrangement these tradwife fetish guys want, they imagine it like the husband is just this individualist dom sex pest and the wife does all the boring stuff so they can go be "men" in a juvenile fantasy way. They don't realize in these traditional arrangements that actually work, the commitment goes both ways and you are giving up those man fantasies. They don't think about how you're involved with a whole community that provides structure to your life.
They definitely do
They do, I mean the ones in the article are running online brands based on it, but I grew up in an environment with strict traditional marriage ideals and the tradwife in that context doesn't match with this.
Everyone here assuming all of us know what a tradwife is....
Anyway, from the article:
" "Tradwife" is internet slang for "traditional wife." It's largely a social media trend of conventionally attractive white women putting out TikToks and videos gushing about the joys of submissive marriage and "modesty," though notably this "modest" clothing often leaves little to the imagination. "
Dumb bitches are smart.
I also want be a trophy husband, where I don't have to do shit. Smart
But to put up with that amount of stupidity I would work my ass off to be sure I'm out of there instead of being someone's slave who doesn't get an opinion. Dumb bitchess
Edit: Brah I never thought that so many people would think I'm for real in a post that starts with "dumb bitches are smart."
Y'all are soo smart
I think you underestimate the amount of subservience involved here. You're basically raising a baby man child that doesn't ever grow up.
What are you 12? Who expresses themselves like this?
Idk. They’re hitching their financial stability to someone else entirely.
They still going to be able to do that at 40? Good luck with job searching after you’ve just been tradwifing it for however many years.
The trick is to get pregnant and marry, like this you can claim half of his stuff BC one of you sacrificed their job carrear to stay at home.
It works on courts, don't ask how I know this
Ah yes. The not at all hidden cost of sticking your dick in someone.
You don't
Fleecing these nutjobs by pandering to their fantasies is so fucking easy.
Same folks who wouldn't walk through New York City honestly believe they'd be a badass warlord in the post apocalypse
In my doomer brain...
It's just a preview of what's to come if the far right takes over, for every woman that is unfortunate to come across a man that is all in.
They'll reverse no fault marriage, and then when you marry the guy (either because the guy pulls a bait and switch, or you don't really understand what your agreeing too until after the fact) you either comply or get beat into submission, with no way out, while you pop out babies
This is a handbook, not a fad.
I'm sure I'm wrong and it's a bunch of women that don't want to work...but if it's not, it could turn into some scary shit.
Well. The Handmaid's Tale is the handbook since they literally want Gilead and have been openly working towards it
This is like ragebait to the third power.
That's Salon for you.
Your right, but I think there is something there. I was watching a girl gamer/streamer (whatever you call them) give an entire talk about how she is against feminists or someshit, and the 4chan crowd were spamming the link and calling her based - so I decided to check it out and it was her complaining about getting drafted, being a triggered armpit hair snowflake, some other dumb shit - really fucking idiotic stuff. (Her name was Brittany venti and something about feminism ruining her life for the curious).
If I didn't know any better, it looks to me to be the alt-right and by proxy, conservative strategists, trying to find the latest wedge issue to attack women and women friendly causes - flinging shit around and seeing what sticks
In my circles of friends, I've been hearing girls make dumb comments about feminism as well, so there is something bubbling under the surface. None of them can articulate anything though
I'm curious how all these alt-right (e.g., white supremacist/christian nationalists) think that they're going to be able to afford a family--since the very concept of a tradwife is rooted in having a large family--when their wife is going to be entirely a stay-at-home wife? What kind of career do they think that they're going to have? Are they in medical school, or prepping for the bar exam? Did they just finish their MBA?
The funny thing is that the GOP were the ones who destroyed the middle class. In 1968, one job supporting a family of four with a stay at home mom was the norm. Nixon's Vietnam War inflation [he paid for the war with paper money to avoid raising taxes] combined with the Oil Boycott made more and more families dependent on a second job to keep going. After three terms or Reaganomics, the two income family was the norm. Meanwhile, $1 million in 1968 was a vast fortune, and by 1993 it was what a rich guy paid for a party.
They fantasize about being a local warlord when society breaks down.
Yuuup. Both my wife (and myself for that matter) said it'd be great to be a stay at home spouse. But then the other person would have to make double the money, and that's not happening...
Shhh. You'll just confuse them. Let them have their fantasy and economic ruin.
No. That gets the rest of us economic ruin as well
If it only affected them, and not just their (potential) children, I'd be fine with that. But growing up in that kind of family ain't no way to start life.
Honestly, if you make enough money that you can be a solid tradhusband, and you find a woman that wants to be a tradwife, that's fine! Do that thing if that's what you want. But slipping into poverty because you need to live out fantasy visions of masculinity, and dragging your family with you? Naw.
I've met people who live that life as a kind of kink. It's honestly amazing that people can somehow afford it.
While our kids were little, my wife could've had a job that just about broke even with daycare. Maybe netted $200/mo. Why the hell would I put her through all that and spend on gas and an extra vehicle for $50/wk. That's a buck an hour! The family was better off being supported on a single income.
It wasn't kinky. Well okay we worked a little kink into it. I'm not saying everyone needs to try this one little hack, but we ran the math and dual income didn't make sense for us; single income wasn't anything we had to try to make work. Yeah we had to make choices and limit ourselves a little, but only a tiny bit less than otherwise. Our monthly budget was like $3k or something and another $200 was nothing.
Stay at home mom is one thing, but was she subservient and obedient?
There's a difference between a woman staying at home to raise kids because it makes financial sense, and what these women are peddling.
TMI: I mean we are kinky so it felt like a natural fit at first but it didn't take very long to get uncomfortable with household submission outside the bedroom. Especially since we have daughters and even if it was sexy for us, it sure as hell wasn't behavior I wanted to model for them.
So as far as your point goes it really wasn't kinky, but I have some understanding of how it can be for some folks who already decide single income is the right choice for them. But once kids enter the picture, kink has to go behind closed doors. Family dynamic has to grow beyond just what tickles two people.
This is fair. You guys tried it out, within a certain context. When it didn't feel right yall moved on. There's nothing wrong with trying new things, and there's nothing wrong with using this concept to be kinky. Spice up your life, I say. And, good on you for not wanting to role model that for your daughters!
I feel like what's going on here is more than just a kink, though. I can see how what these women are doing could be construed as a kink, but that seems superficial and kinda dangerous. These women aren't just saying "Yes, Master" when their husband's tell them to bend over and pick up that spoon they've dropped, wearing some maid outfit in a xxx rated 50 Shades of Grey fantasy. They're advocating for compete and total control, by their husbands, over their everyday lives, from a religious standpoint. Not going out at night, having trackers on their phones, and controlling who their friends are, are also some of the things the videos of those women in the article listed.
Yeah, the article is about how it's giving young men the wrong idea about relationships, comparing it to how porn gives them the wrong idea about sex. But, at the end of the day, I think its a poor analogy. Its not just about lonely guys having unreasonable expectations of a wifes role in (and out, in this case ;) of the bedroom. The message here is that women should all love not being treated as equals, in any regard, and their only role is to cater to a man's every whim, because thats what the Bible says. Not just whims sexual in nature, but in every aspect of life. If a large amount of men come to expect every woman should act like this...well, just ask women in Iran or Afghanistan how that's going.
I don't think raising kids is what people are talking about here
It's definitely part of the context. What do you imagine these stay at home wives are supposed to do while they aren't earning money? The desire for a tradwife and the number of times per day the word "cuck" goes through their heads is closely related.
Kids are certainly part of the alpha-male fantasy package. They wants fifties household complete with kids and the husband spanking the wife if there are water spots on the dishes. Kids are both a status symbol and another layer of control.
I got a coworker who claims is wife is like that, don’t know if this is true or not but he does mention it a lot.
Interesting.
I managed to find them while exploring a related kink that I would like to avoid naming as I don't enjoy being kinkshamed.
The experience with the discord community I had joined was positive at first but became negative over a series of poorly moderated interactions and increasingly poor community rule implementations.
That being said, the thing I found in common was that the women who were interested in that lifestyle tends to enjoy having an easier life and not having to worry about the every career bullshit. Instead getting to focus on keeping a house neat and orderly, ensuring meals were worked and other activities.
More power to them I suppose, reminds me a little too much of secret society by nofx or the 3 slogans from 1984
Maybe they are in a poly relation with their bank and also indulging a findom kink?
I'd love a trad wife or frankly to be a trans trad wife? Basically I'd love myself or my wife to be able to not have to work and actually be able to spend time cooking meals and doing household chores, so we actually have more time with each other at the weekends.
Hahahaha, when I grew up, I though it was pretty neat that my mom did all the chores at home and, basically, worked (as a household raising mother) from home in 1995. Loosely translated, we have a non-derogatory word for it in dutch: House-spouse or House-woman. When asked at school what I wanted to be when i grew up: House-spouse/House-man!
Social media is really no different than traditional media: you play a character that appeals to your specific audience to sell something, in this case, the tradwife lifestyle, because that's what their audience wants to see, a kind of fantastical parallel universe like Barbieland, a fantastical parody of the media's depiction of 1950s Americana to make money. Don't get too angry at that, because fictional persona are just that, fictions, and the second the camera stopped rolling these characters cease to exist, because these characters cannot step into the real world.
In reality, how many women would actually put on cute pink sweaters and nice stainless farm dress and a full face of makeup to cook and clean? Trust me, nobody looks this good when they are doing housework.
I understand why these kind of video became popular, because they are ultimately is a reactionary movement in response to some of the more extreme and vitriolic voices within the feminists movement, but again, a broken system that is inherently unfair is still broken even if the sides are switched, and it's still not the equality and fairness we should all be striving toward.
There's nothing I find more pathetic than a man that cannot get through the day without an obedient slave to wipe his arrse for him.
It's the epitome of fragility.
Oh dear, mensliberation seems to be leaning a bit far right these days if those comments are anything to go by.
If there's a place where unhappy men gather it'll inevitably attract stinkers that try to radicalize the rest. Seems like there's a mod actively looking out for it here, at least.
Kind of strange that the top comments in this thread are referring to the fantasy of a single-income household, as if surviving on one income would make an oppressed, confined, lonely, mothers-little-helper-addicted wife acceptable.
I don't think they're implying it'd be acceptable, just that the current economic situation makes that fantasy even more unrealistic.
Classic Lemmy. They aren't suggesting that if the income was there, the fantasy is A ok.
They are discussing a specific facet of the situation. You don't have to acknowledge everything in every comment. There's already many comments on how gross the fantasy is
It was a much simpler time. One person could stay at home and take care of the kids. No headaches or additional costs of arranging childcare.
Why should we care about how tow consenting adults choose to live their matrimonial lives. What is this. Fascism ?
Huh? Am I missing sarcasm or have we read two completely different articles?
I think the difference is you read the article.
:(
The very definition of fascism yes, nazism being "commenting on articles without reading them", and communism obviously being "being triggered by feminism".
You didn't read the article did you?
Getting there far too quickly.
There's no need to kink shame.
Let's not do the same to the right wing as they do to everyone else.
There is when they refuse to acknowledge it's a kink. And when they try to push it on others.
Oh, and it usually involves children, which means they're bringing non-consenting minors into their kink. No, I would shame the fuck out of them if I thought they could feel shame.
Exactly, the whole point of a kink is you take a desire for something potentially very bad or toxic (either for yourself or others) and you encapsulate it in a consensual fantasy bubble in order to act it out and fulfill those desires.
A kink is sexy because of the careful intentionality of taking a strong desire within yourself and disentangling it from your worldview, politics, and fundamental values so that you can act it out in a liberating fantasy that doesn’t need to reconcile its inconsistencies with the rest of yourself, it can just be and that is ok.
Building a whole worldview around a kink is the opposite of sexy because the whole point of a kink is that is sexy af when you know yourself so well that you can extract an irrational desire that would otherwise control whole regions of your life and explore it sexually in order to both feel that desire fulfilled at the deepest level possible and also establish agency over that desire so that it cannot overwhelm your ethics or values.
What a boring kink. No wonder they're afraid of goth mommies
Let people enjoy things?
Don't let fascists enjoy anything.
Let people enjoy being forced into a lifestyle against their will?
That sounds like Florida logic… “the slaves learned valuable skills!! It wasn’t all bad!!”
Who's forcing anyone? Can you really not imagine someone wanting to be in a traditional relationship?
It is not so much about people wanting to be in a traditional relationship. I understand wanting that. The tradwife TikTok trend is more than that, though. It sells a fantasy under the illusion of reality.
Man as leader and breadwinner with woman as homemaker and primary caregiver for the children? That is great if it works for the partnership! The problem is that the content goes beyond this. Always actively pretty and made up? Always submissive? Always catering to the husband's needs with no concern for their own? This is not a healthy place for a wife to be because it is not a healthy dynamic for any person.
In a real "traditional" relationship, the partners are partners. It is not explicitly said, but this content pushes further into territory where the woman gives up autonomy to her husband. It is also not really aimed at women. The content finds it's audience with men who want this fantasy. And you know what? The fantasy is fine! It is ok to fantasize about having a submissive wife who caters to your every whim. This content, this role of absolute servitude, is being served to lonely young men as fact. It is being sold as something attainable. There are no women lining up to give up their autonomy for any random dude.
Again, it is totally cool if you want to embrace traditional gender roles. Do what makes life good for you, and find a partner who wants the same! Just do not expect that you could ever get a woman to give up everything for you unless you are really, truly giving her everything first. Even then, most women would not want that.
To me this kind of trend is no different to any other trend on social media. There's certainly no shortage of stupid trends coming from social media and by now people should learn to distinguish real life from TikTok. The tradwife cringe doesn't seem more or less harmful than the onlfans girl trend. And there's probably no point in waiting for a salon article on how harmful sex work can be.
Personally I think you should be able to sell people any kind of fantasy you want to because that's what these trends are - a fantasy.
Who’s forcing anyone? Did you read the article before commenting?
No but now that I skimmed through it the article kind of seems to prove the point of the people saying progressives/lefties are triggered by tradwives